wfn.org | ACNS3506 Archbishop of Canterbury's sermon from Synod Eucharist

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ACNS 3506     |     ENGLAND     |     13 JULY 2003 

Archbishop of Canterbury's sermon from Synod Eucharist

 From this morning's epistle: 'To unite all things in him, things in
heaven and things on earth' 

In one of C P Snow's novels about Cambridge college life, a rather
ill-tempered college meeting is grinding towards a close, and a vote has
to be taken. The outcome by this time is obvious. The only question is
how large the majority will be. The chairman appeals to Winslow, one of
the most eloquent spokesmen of the minority, although the matter at
issue doesn't much concern him. Will he change his vote? With his usual
elegant sarcasm, Winslow replies, 'Certainly, Master. I am always happy
to lend my name to an appearance of meaningless unanimity'. 

To appeal to or speak in the name of unity in the Church is very easily
capable of slipping into the search for an appearance of meaningless
unanimity. Unity has become a flaccid word, a default option, a denial
of pain and work and real difference. No-one can speak against it, it is
a motherhood and apple-pie concept; and this means that no-one much
wants to speak for it either. At this Synod, it is more than usually in
our minds - not only because of our internal affairs but because of our
relations with the Methodist Church ; for how many of us though is it a
word inviting a touch of boredom or of scepticism? 

But here in this morning's epistle we are told that the hidden purpose
of God, finally and amazingly laid bare to us, is to unite all things in
heaven and earth in Jesus Christ; and that this purpose is already being
realised by the Holy Spirit in the present life of the Church. Whatever
is going on here, it is more than the appearance of meaningless
unanimity. Heaven and earth have been estranged, incapable of
communicating. But something has happened which changes heaven and
earth. Heaven, the realm where angels live only to praise God, is laid
open to human beings. They can bring their flawed and stumbling words
into the angels' perfect song without fear or shame. 'Therefore with
angels and archangels...' we say, acknowledging that heaven's harmony
can accommodate even our untrained and raucous voices. And earth is
altered for ever: there are no corners of our human world where praise
cannot be offered, no place too dark for God's glory to find some
reflection. 

'To unite all things in him': this unity is achieved by and through that
action by which God brings us into fellowship with himself, the cross of
Jesus which makes our peace with God and one another. So unity appears
as the fruit of an inexpressible cost, the self-emptying of God the
Word; and the bearing of that cost unites by changing, by opening heaven
and converting earth. Unity here is not consensus or tactical alliance
or denial. It is renewed life, given in the passion of Christ. Living in
the Church is living in the aftermath of this divine event, living in a
landscape where the barriers between heaven and earth are down, and the
barriers between human beings are down. Here and now - and very
especially when we meet for the Eucharist - we inhabit this new
landscape. 

But if we turn to other epistles, above all the Roman and Corinthian
letters, what do we see of this new life? Passionate party spirit ('I
belong to Paul, I belong to Apollos'); moral confusion ('It is actually
reported that there is immorality among you'), bitterness and
superiority ('Why do you despise your brother?'; 'You gladly bear with
fools, being wise yourselves!'), ignoring the needs of the disadvantaged
('You despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing').
The actual common life of the communities to which Paul writes falls a
little short of anything that looks convincingly like a foretaste of
heaven and earth in harmony. 

So what is striking is that Paul appeals for unity not as a way of
denying conflict or smoothing over the surface but because the conflicts
and failures of the churches are the opportunity for wresting a gift out
of what seems a curse. Each member of the Body is gifted for the sake of
all others; break the unity of the community and you will never receive
what God has for you in the life of the other. Paul's fierce challenges
to his churches leave us with no illusions about this being easy. To
abide in unity through the sort of savage quarrels he describes is
absolutely not the soft option. The Apollos party and the Cephas party
in Corinth, or the rigorists about food laws in Romans would all have a
much nicer time if they retreated into their separate enclaves. But, as
Paul puts it in both Romans and I Corinthians, to do this is would be to
forget that they are there in the first place because Christ died for
them all. 

The challenge of Paul's gospel appears most radically at this point. The
irreducible facts about the brother or sister are that Christ died for
them and that the Spirit wants to give something through them. To cling
to unity is to cling to those convictions, especially when everything in
us cries out for separation. Or, in plain words, unity is a gospel
imperative to just the extent that we find it hard. Unity is a gospel
imperative when we recognise that it opens us to change, to conversion;
when we realise how our life with Christ is somehow bound up with our
willingness to abide with those we think are sinful and those we think
are stupid. A community where people don't care about the effects of
their actions or where people are preoccupied constantly with the
conditions under which they will stay in touch with each other is one in
which what I earlier called the pain and the work and the real
difference that we can see in the churches to which Paul wrote are being
forgotten. A New Testament Church is one in which unity is seen as vital
precisely because it invites us to struggle for blessing as we wrestle
with a stranger. If someone else stands with me claiming the promises of
Christ, then, for St Paul , my first assumption must always be that in
unity - in conversation and struggle, agreement, argument, shared praise
- I shall receive from them something of Christ. 

Today's gospel of course prompts thoughts of other kinds of peace and
unity, and it is a nice irony that we read it alongside these visionary
words from Ephesians. It is the same King Herod who, later in the gospel
narrative, achieves a kind of reconciliation with Pilate when they join
in the rejection and condemnation of Jesus. There is indeed a unity born
of cowardice - as plenty of people are willing to remind us; and Herod's
execution of the Baptist is no doubt something that brings him a faintly
guilty but relieved sense that peace is restored in the palace. Jesus
arises to disturb his peace; and, with Pilate, Herod will once again
conspire in the removal of Jesus for the sake of peace and unity. And
Jesus - literally - arises to disturb the whole world's peace for the
sake of the whole world's salvation, for the sake of unity between
heaven and earth. To live in his peace, in his unity, is to live
constantly in the presence of his call to be converted. It is to
recognise the immense cost of a unity that truly brings differences into
a shared praise; and to accept that it will cost us everything. The
luxury of separation is really death; the pain of unity is really life
for us, who are 'destined and appointed to live for the praise of his
glory'.

C Rowan Williams 2003

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